


hey darling

by sphesphe



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Boston Bruins, Breaking Up & Making Up, M/M, assholes in love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:48:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9360218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sphesphe/pseuds/sphesphe
Summary: Of the things that Chris Kelly was prepared to miss about Boston, being textually accosted at random hours and called names wasn’t necessarily one of them.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [insunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/gifts).
  * Inspired by [want to make catastrophe](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8680480) by [insunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/insunshine/pseuds/insunshine). 



> Here is my very affectionate ode to Chris Kelly's cranky brand of love. @insunshine, I hope you like it!!
> 
> This is a remix, so it will definitely make more sense if you read the fic it's based on first. <3

_Hey crankypants_

Of the things that Chris Kelly was prepared to miss about Boston, being textually accosted at random hours and called names wasn’t necessarily one of them.

Being back in Ottawa’s nice. Familiar. He’s a vet and a leader. He’s got a ring and a cloud of positive intangibles. No one’s expecting much scoring. At this stage of his career, he’s good with that.

It’s manageable. Nice and quiet. He goes back to his place after practices and watches TV, does his thing. His teammates respect him. No one ever comes over unannounced to eat his food and bounce around like a hyperactive squirrel while chirping every single thing Chris owns.

 

_Hey there Kelloggs frosted flakes_

For some reason, Chris’s mom is convinced that being single at 36 means he’s suffering deeply and needs to be unsubtly set up with acquaintances of acquaintances who might be in a similar state of suffering.

He goes out on some blind dates, to restaurants and art galleries and bowling alleys and whatever. The normal things people do on dates. The people are mostly very nice and ask questions about his life and say nice things to him. He takes some of them home, tries to show them a mutually pleasant time.

No one snores like a goddamned chainsaw, wakes up at a bullshit hour to run the coffee machine grinder, complains about the lack of disgustingly sweet creamer, and sheds odd pieces of clothing in random strange corners to be archaeologically uncovered in some later eon. 

Chris doesn’t call any of them back.

 

_Kellsyyyyyyyy hey_

Sometimes Chris still gets texts. Incomprehensible notes air-dropped from a stormy sky, shorn of true friendliness. Which, really, is understandable. Little passive aggressive jabs. _lolol, not like you give a shit._

Chris reads them all, fingers clenched tight on his phone. He responds only when he judges it absolutely necessary, when the texts get drunker and sadder and tip over some indeterminate line of sadness and he can’t not say _something_. He's trying to maintain boundaries here.

He feels like a complete dick.

 

_Hey grumpy guts I’m coming over_  
_Get readayyyyy for the Bradley show live at 8_

“Hey, I saved Alfredsson’s career, you know,” Chris tells Bobby, after being on the receiving end of some mild slander about his age and his impressive grace at skating.

“You did?” Bobby says, sounding sort of actually impressed.

“Yeah. He got all crazy about his skates, so one day he tried on mine, broke a scoring slump. So then I had to always get new skates, break them in for a couple weeks, and give them to him. I may be creaky, but I guarantee my feet are goddamned great luck.”

“Huh.” Bobby mulls this over. “That’s pretty cool, man,” he says, and emits an awkward laugh. Bobby lightly punches Chris’s arm and wanders off.

Chris sighs. His teammates are nice and all, but it’s just not the same.

He goes home and watches TV. While excavating a stray pile of laundry he’s barely touched since moving to Ottawa, he finds a t-shirt with the slogan of some Halifax gym on it, in a dumb faux gothic font. Chris looks at it and feels lashes of regret rampage through his chest like a goddamn rabid bear.

Which is a completely apropos metaphor.

Chris thinks about mailing it back. Alternatively, about dumping it into the trash can. Neither option really makes him feel good. It even still smells familiar, a mix of cologne and the basic human smell that emanates from a person’s skin; a very specific mix that used to be deeply comforting and now kind of hurts.

In the end, he folds the shirt and slides it way into the deepest depths of his closet. Compromise solution. Out of sight, out of mind.

Yeah. Right.

 

_Yo Kells you there? It’s freezing out come save me_

The Senators go to Boston in November and manage a 3-1 win. Chris gets a nice tribute and a little bit of love from the crowd. He meets up briefly with Bergy, Krej, Torey, a bunch of the guys, before the game — Z’s out injured, but he sends a welcome back message too.

Brad meets his eyes like once on the ice and skates away without saying anything. All the tension that’s gradually built up in Chris’s chest over the course of the entire week goes out of him like air leaking from a balloon.

 

_Hey bud_

The next day, the Bruins lose again and Chris’s carefully constructed boundary wall crumbles the fuck apart. The foundations are too goddamn unsound, built on the quicksand of cowardice. 

Plus he still hates seeing them lose.

So he gives in. He doesn’t let himself think about it too long. Just scrolls through his saved texts and hits call.

In his crankiest tone, he says, “I thought getting traded would negate me having to give pep-talks to you jerks, but I guess I was wrong, huh?” and waits with unaccountably bated breath.

It takes a little while — like, a few sentences — but before very long Brad calls him an asshole.

Just like that: Chris feels better than he has in weeks.

 

So, look: back when Chris got traded and told Brad that they shouldn’t do the long distance thing, he was _trying_ to be a reasonable grownup and exercise some restraint, save everyone some heartbreak. Who enjoys heartbreak? Not Chris Kelly. 

However, Chris gets enlightened to some harsh facts, namely: he’s been a dick and a dumbass and what he really needed was someone to tell him so.

Not that he has exclusivity on being a dick here. There a more than adequate amount of dickishness to go around.

Brad tells him so, and Chris tells him back, and—

That’s a lot better than _nice_.

 

* * *

_Hey jerkface_

_Hey troll doll,_ Chris sends back. It’s been a few months since they decided to see this thing on through. The iron whip of the schedule has prevented them from meeting in person till now, as the Bruins drop into Ottawa. They’ve gotten creative with Skype and Facetime and incessant non-stop chirpy texts, as constant and rhythmic as a heartbeat. Keeping this relationship alive through the awesome power of banter. It’s been enough to keep Chris going. It’s been good.

 _Get any taller since November?_ he types.

_Nah_  
_I don’t need to be any taller to show you the best time of your life_  
_I’m coming over, OK_  
_Well send me your address already dumbass_

Chris sends him the address and then waits in his living room. Tension builds up and buzzes through his veins — part anticipation, part horniness. Maybe a tiny bit of nervousness that Brad’ll come over and be like _hey, actually I thought better of this whole thing after all, you washed up old loser_. 

He should know better. He does know better. But still: a tiny bit.

Before too very long his door buzzer goes off. Chris presses the button to let him into the building, forcibly takes control of his face; waits for the knock, takes a deep breath. Then he opens the door.

Brad’s there, real and short and solid, smirking up at Chris with his absolutely smarmiest smirk. “Hey Kells. How much did you miss me?” he says. Then without missing a beat: “I’m gonna go with a lot.”

“We talk every day,” Chris says, in his flattest tone, and lets Brad saunter into his space. He’d be lying if he said it doesn’t feel different now that Brad’s finally here in person. He smells of his old familiar clean scent. Chris swallows.

Brad looks him up and down with obnoxiously obvious intent. “Well, I guess you don’t look too much worse,” he says happily, laughter dancing in his eyes, and Chris feels something in him go a little bit dumb and fascinated and alive at the sight.

“You definitely look worse,” he quips.

Brad clutches dramatically at his heart. “Kells, that hurts me. Right here.”

With false reluctance, Chris admits gruffly, “I guess I missed you a tiny bit.” 

“Aw,” Brad says, and his grin softens to something almost sweet. “Well then. C’mere and prove it to me, dork.”

Chris steps closer. Warmth gathers in eddies between their bodies, the tension ratcheting silently up along with Chris’s heart rate. He huffs out a breath and gives in.

Brad kisses like — like it’s been months upon months since they last did this, Skype and sexting aside. Hot and greedy, getting an arm around Chris’s neck and keeping him reeled in close. His stubble scratching Chris’s face, his breath exhales onto Chris’s lips: it’s a lot. It’s more than good.

Finally Brad draws away, looks up at Chris through his lashes like he's trying to be seductive and ruins it by demanding, “Okay, be a good host and show me where you keep the bed in this joint.”

“Bossy,” Chris complains, completely toothless; he’s already ushering Brad in the direction of the bedroom. It’s been a long fucking while. The grousing isn’t doing a great job of hiding how he’s burning up with desire.

“Strip show starts now,” Brad says once they reach the bed, and suits actions to words, lifting his shirt over his head and tossing it away to be utterly forgotten. Chris gets caught up in watching the casual, irresistible reveal of skin and has to scramble to catch up with his own clothes. Brad laughs at him, chirps, “Getting slow there, Oscar the Grouch.”

“I’ll show you slow,” Chris grumbles. He pushes Brad flat on his back on the bed, kisses him once thoroughly and then slides down to finally, _finally_ get his mouth on Brad’s half-hard dick. Brad arches and swears, his dick reaching full hardness in about two seconds. Chris has jerked off to this so many times in the past few months. His own dick already aches.

“Fuck fuck fuck,” he hears Brad chant, distantly, and bobs faster — staying just along the near edge of choking. He’s been dying to wreck Brad like this, he can’t wait any more. He can’t.

All of a sudden he’s being pushed back, urged up and off. “What?” he demands, rusty-voiced, having reached some kind of frustrated zenith of crankiness. “What?”

“Okay, when I called you slow, I didn’t mean you had to, like. Make the whole thing last less than three minutes,” Brad says, slightly dazed as he sits up.

“Yeah, but then we could do it _again_ ,” Chris says, also slightly trying to catch his breath without being too obvious about it. “What, you can’t?”

“Why am I trying to convince you to slow down like you’re the young stud here?” Brad complains.

Chris narrows his eyes and uses all his wisdom and self-control to resist going down a lengthy tangent about _that_ remark. Instead he says, aiming for casual, “I missed you. Maybe more than a little. You know.”

For a long moment, Brad just looks at him. Silence from him is so jarring that Chris is on the verge of being concerned. But then Brad slants a slow smile and clambers up to his knees, urges Chris up to meet him in a lingering kiss. “Me too,” Brad says, once they break apart. “You know that. Didn’t change just because it’s been a little while.”

“Yeah, all right,” Chris says.

“Yeah, all right,” Brad mimics in his lame, growly imitation of Chris’s voice. Sometimes Chris hates him so much it pretty much turns into entirely the opposite thing.

Brad makes Chris take a turn lying down, settles his weight on top, heavy and warm and real. They make out with slow intense promise till at last Chris really, truly, _really_ can’t wait anymore. He grits out, “Brad—”

“Yeah,” Brad says, gone serious for a half second. “I got you,” he says, slides down till he’s eye level with Chris’s cock, daintily licks, then lowers his mouth wetly down. It’s excruciatingly good. “Jesus fuck,” Chris distantly hears himself hiss.

He doesn’t try to hold back much. It’s too good, it’s been too long; he commits himself to the hot sweet feeling, pushing in tiny thrusts into Brad’s tight throat till he feels the oncoming rush, the overwhelming wave, and loses it: comes hard, on and on for what feels like forever, with a quiet groan.

When he shudders back into full awareness, Brad’s looming up over him, wiping spit from his chin and grinning smugly. “You been saving it up for me, eh? Nice work, Kells,” Brad says. “Dude, I am so awesome.”

The worst part is Chris can’t even pull himself together enough to correctly dispute this dumbass claim. “Short but _so_ sexy,” he manages, one hundred fifty percent insincerely. Brad’s grin radiates pure pleased triumph, like he doesn’t even understand sarcasm anymore.

Chris shoves him and his smug happy face over and proceeds to show him who in this relationship is _really_ the most awesome at dick sucking.

 

Later, Chris gets woken from a blissful post-orgasm(s) nap by a sleep-creaky voice saying, “Hey, wake up. Old timer. Hey. Hey.”

Chris finds himself fucking _smiling_ , which just goes to show how far he's fallen. Contentment rumbles through him regardless. 

Chris manages to flail a hand around till he touches Brad’s warm solid side. And maybe it's his flailing heart in his throat that makes him sound extra rusty when he says, “Hey, you little pest. Hey."

**Author's Note:**

> [Here's the article about Kelly breaking in Alfredsson's skates.](http://ottawacitizen.com/sports/hockey/nhl/senatorsextra/how-chris-kellys-skates-saved-daniel-alfredssons-career) APPRECIATE CHRIS KELLY, Y'ALL.


End file.
